


pins and needles

by kuro49



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-04-20 17:28:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4796072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Mako still becomes a Jaeger pilot and saves the world.</p><p>(But Hercules Hansen's name drifts among the techs of the Hong Kong 'dome for a very different reason.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Belle86](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belle86/gifts).



> because i saw [strikerbelle's tags](http://strikerbelle.tumblr.com/post/127742103031/awful-au-341) and that was pretty much it for me because there was no way i wouldn't be writing this even though this turned out to have nothing to do with that post's original au aside from the fact that herc is a tattoo artist.

He doesn’t find her out of the ordinary the first time she comes into his Parlour.

To Hercules, she is a young, pretty thing looking to find herself in a world already gone off the rails. And to him, he has seen plenty of that, done their first piece plenty of times too. This is nothing new, she will come and go, and a piece he will end up finishing for her will stay. And, that will be that.

“What will it be today?”

He calls out in English before she can say a word because even with all the years he’s been here, his Cantonese is still shit. And local girls with their rapid fire Cantonese is not something he can catch. He doesn’t need to waste anyone’s time when the kid’s not in the shop to play translator for his old man, and he hasn’t encountered anyone who wants to risk what might be permanent on a language barrier.

But a second look tells him just this, she is not one of the local girls.

She is not one for the usual.

Not when the blueprint she takes out from her coat is authentic PPDC property.

“You authorized to have that, Miss?”

There is surprise when she looks to him from the other side of the small counter he has at the front of the Parlour, like she doesn’t expect him to be able to tell the real thing from a fake.

He is not insulted.

“It is not stealing if I return it.” She tells him, recovering from the surprise with a hint of a smile, and it’s a faint thing. A simple tilt in both corners of her mouth, but it is a very pretty thing.

He likes that he is the one to elicit that from her.

“Way I see it, Miss, all just a matter of principle.”

She looks at him, dark eyes fanned by darker lashes, and Hercules really isn’t much of a man for types but for her, he is sure any man will make all the exceptions.

“Full sleeve.”

He takes a look at the clock up on the walls between the faded Polaroids and the collage of photos of complete pieces and tells her to come back in thirty for a sketch. She turns around and sits down right there on his ratty old couch, picking up a magazine that has been on that table since the early 2000s.

“I can wait.”

He doesn’t know if she sees his grin but he settles in to giving her a sketch worthy of the spread of authentic PPDC blueprint across his counter. He does know how easily her eyes stray from the page though, how her gaze falls on him despite the clutter of the Parlour and everything else that is so much more exciting than him.

After all, he is looking too.

 

The second time she comes into his Parlour, he has her at his station, in his chair, for the line art. There is the right kind of excitement for a first piece when she watches him lay a stencil down on the entirety of her left arm.

“Let me know if the pain gets too bad.”

He tells her when he has his gloves on and a single-tipped needle in his hand, the black ink sitting ready on his right.

She nods, and he doesn’t find it hard to believe that she isn’t about to let him know a thing.

There is music that fills the silence comfortably, something that Chuck can’t stand on sheer principle alone. Herc has never been one for words and she doesn’t look like she is one for conversation but curiosity gets the best of him. He has tattooed a great deal of Jaeger flies, done drivesuit scars and Jaeger insignias. (He doesn’t like to do the Kaiju but if Newt’s not around, business is still business and an open port doesn’t mean anything is any less expensive.)

Unless it is supplied, he has never developed a habit to ask. But she compels him.

“Why Coyote Tango?”

The excess ink leaves smears of black across her skin as he starts at the foot of Coyote’s right leg and works his way up. Each line a crisp, sharp divide across the canvas of her arm, and it is not entirely reluctant when she finally replies.

“…She saved me.”

“She saved a lot of people.”

It isn’t until she is gone, the pretty girl with the streaks of blue in her hair, that Hercules Hansen comes to the realization that she is none other than Tokyo’s daughter, that little girl in the blue coat in the debris of what Onibaba has razed of the city. That picture of her has been through the press for years now, he doesn’t how he did not recognize someone out of such an iconic image.

It leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

He figures she still has to come back for him to fill in the colour to the outlining, he figures he can apologize then.

 

It is raining hard outside when she returns.

It makes for a quiet kind of day, a slow one with his other artists out about the city with their appointment books empty for the day. It makes for a musty kind of day that brings out the smell of wet earth from beyond the walls of this old decay of a building that still stands just outside the Bone Slums.

She makes for quite the sight, a black silhouette stepping in from the rain.

The oversized umbrella she has with her drips wet across his linoleum floors as she comes in.

“Mr. Choi recommended you.”

She offers up on her own volition before he has worked up an apology for his insensitivity. And it feels a lot like she is saying _it’s alright_ even if he knows it’s not.

(After all, he has a name on his left arm framed by angels.

She doesn’t see it until her next visit when it gets too hot in the Parlour to keep his shirt on but he will tell her, _Scissure_ and that is all the answer anyone needs. Just as _Onibaba_ makes up for all the explanation she could give. He apologizes then.

“I should have known.”

“I rather you did not.” She replies, and he can understand that too.)

“Choi?” He laughs softly, his hand steady as he fills in the colour of streaks of sunlight from behind Coyote’s Conn-Pod. “Gave you my name, did he?”

“Just said I can’t miss you.” She gestures at his beard, and finishes. “Ginger.”

“That fucker.” Herc wipes away the excess ink, dips his needle into the yellow and goes at it again, laying down another layer of colour to make Coyote stand in sharp relief. “Couldn’t even say something flattering about me.”

She isn’t looking at him when she answers, just has her eyes closed to the ceiling, breathing even, her long black coat left out on his old couch to air dry.

“He did not have to.”

 

She comes back to him in six months because Mako Mori is not one to do anything halfway.

The first full sleeve she gets, she gets with him. And the longer she spends with Coyote on one arm, it is looking more and more tempting to get another to match. She is happy enough with this piece to make her a returning customer. It definitely helps that he really isn’t bad looking at all to spend her off-hours from the ‘dome to be here in his chair.

(She still remembers that first time she sees the wings spanning his back, stretching from one shoulder blade to the other.

It is impressive, and she says just that. He gives her permission before she can ask, lets her put a finger to the solid black lines blocking out the feathers. He is still beneath her hands as she traces each one, and even with the fans running on high it is warm in the Parlour where he is hot.

 _You should see my brother’s_ , and there is probably a story there too.)

Mako walks in from the sweltering humid heat of a city getting hotter, and he is still shockingly ginger even without the beard.

“Hello again, Mr. Hansen.”

“I feel old enough as it is, Miss Mori.”

She rolls her eyes at him and calls him _Herc_. And there is a familiarity here that feels like it has barely been a week, let alone six months in this cramped city of seven million.

“So, what will it be this time?”

He doesn’t look all that surprised when she lays down another blueprint in front of him. But neither does she when he only grins, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Mako has really never been the kind of girl that goes for a certain type but for him, she is sure there must be exceptions to be made.

He isn’t giving her a time just as she doesn’t say another thing as she settles in to wait.

“Why this old Mark III?”

“I brought her back from the dead.”

“Resurrecting old Jaeger, Miss Mori?” It’s hard not to catch the slight awe in his voice, way his mouth wraps around her name, way it comes off of his tongue. “I’ve heard stories to do exactly the opposite of that.”

“You never said you were into Jaeger lore, Mr. Hansen.”

“Who isn’t?” He answers, and Mako has been around enough military men and women to know Hercules Hansen is cut from the same cloth. “Used to be a pilot in my better days. I’ll go as far as to assume that the Jaeger are much cooler machines.”

“They are.” She admits and there is something fond in her chest thinking about Gipsy standing in the Jaeger Bay. There are probably many things to be at the end of the world, but she has been at the front lines long enough to know that being shy has never done anyone any good.

It comes out slow and maybe a beat too late, but it comes out between the buzzing of the needle as he fills in Gipsy Danger’s heart with bright streaks of orange and red.

The pain is nothing.

“You are not so bad now, Herc.”

He laughs, his head ducking down for a finer detail in the piece, a flush going as far down as his neck.

“Flattery will get you far, Miss Mori.”

 

Before she leaves, he tells her this with a confidence she does not have.

“You will get your chance.”

He doesn't have to elaborate for them to both know what he is talking about. She has talked of length for a place in the Conn-Pod, more than she has told anyone but he doesn’t know that.

“Maybe.”

She smiles, and her prospects are not looking great, but the world is ending. She can deal with one more disappointment.

“Just don’t forget me when you save the world, Mako.”

“I think I want a piece with all my kill counts next.” She is probably too young for him, and he probably thinks he is too much of a worn, old man for her. But this can hardly end badly when the world is already at the brink of hell. “Save me a seat in your chair?”

"How can I not for 51 drops and 51 kills?"

Hercules is smiling at her from behind that counter and there is nothing she wants more than to drag him down for a kiss in this moment.

It doesn’t happen exactly like that though.

Because he ducks his head down for her, lets her close that final distance between them when she leans into him with her elbows resting against the glass surface.

Mako kisses him and she is not apologetic when she is more bruising than he expects of her, when her hand wrapping around the fabric of his shirt leaves behind wrinkles even after she is gone. Her mouth claims his for herself, teeth sinking down against the swell of his bottom lip for a soft gasp of breath that she takes as her own.

If she smiles into it, it is only because she has pined long enough over him.

And if he comes away with a sigh from that kiss, it is only because it has started from that tight knot inside of her chest. Her hand still has his shirt in a death grip and she is not sure if she can let him go.

She might run out of skin for his work before he runs out of ink, but before that, there is still enough room for more between them. His thumb grazes across the edge of the fresh bandages over her left arm, and there is no better promise than this. She doesn’t doubt him for a second.

“I’ll make sure to clear the whole damn parlour for just the two of us.”

 

XXX Kuro


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where the world is saved, and Mako comes back to collect on every promise Herc made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy belated birthday!! :DDD
> 
> you deserve more than chopped up snippets of tattoo parlour sex for all the times you wrote all my favorite pretty girl fics but because i am me, this is as good as it is probably going to get.
> 
> (if herc was one to keep wine around, they totally would have shared a bottle together in honor of your birthday traditions)

Hercules Hansen doesn’t imagine he will see her again.

Not when the Kaiju Alarms start, blaring through the streets, and it is that same frantic sound from Sydney. Not when Leatherback and Otachi makes land. And especially not when that old Mark III, Gipsy Danger comes down from the sky like a goddamn meteor, caving in a good part of the stadium.

Herc doesn’t pass for a sentimental man but when he can still feel the press of her mouth against his, he thinks it might be too late. That pretty girl with the blue highlights in her hair, and his pieces running intricately down both arms.

With Hong Kong left in such dire circumstances, he can hardly imagine the city is going to stay on the maps for long.

So, of course, he is surprised when she walks in three weeks after the Breach is closed.

Water tracking down her long coat, looking nothing like the saviour the world has made her out to be on the news. Hercules can recognize that, if not anything else when she comes in from the rain.

After all, they never do catch the grief in the pull of Mako Mori’s mouth.

 

Mako has no idea if she is coming to him at the worst time.

Or, if there is ever going to be a better time.

“Caught me on a slow day, Mako.”

But he is still just as she remembers. Herc sees how she glances around the parlour, the empty chairs don’t help his case but Mako is only reminded of how much she likes the sound of her name coming from him.

This is the first breather she’s caught since the Breach closed. This is the first one she has allowed herself since she’s buried her father for a second time in this lifetime now.

She wants comfort. Mako knows it is not entirely fair. Herc is not a distraction, even though he is distracting. But Mako also knows if there is anyone, she sincerely wants it to be him. It is only fair that she admits to this.

“Hoping you would say just as promised, Herc.”

Hercules lets a chuckle when he follows how her eyes track across the expanse of the room, follows her eyes to him (always him). And the way he tries at all has Mako feeling like he might still want to kiss her back.

“I can do that.”

Her smile turns up like she really hasn’t expected him to keep his word.

(Just as he never thought she would be back.)

 

“So, what will it be today, Miss Mori?”

She slips out of her coat and walks up to him in a black tank top and pants cinched in around her waist with a belt. It is nothing like what Sasha has taught her, but Mako knows the right hemisphere of Cherno Alpha would be proud regardless.

She lifts up her top high enough to show Herc just where she wants his next piece.

Right beneath the wire of her bra, and right above where her drive suit scars start.

“Two drops, three kills.”

He tracks a blunt fingertip across her skin, catching her eyes as he does.

“Sounds like odds I could bet my life on.”

 

Mako sits still long enough for him to finish the line art, and then she is on him.

Her patience running short then out, now that she gets to be in his lap, her mouth hot against his skin. Herc helps her out of her top in between each eager press of their mouths. She is insistent that he doesn’t stray far, and he is promising just that when his hands go to trace over Coyote Tango then Gipsy Danger.

His fingertips are rough where they sweep, leaving her with goose bumps when they finally rest just beneath her ribs. He presses the pad of his thumb down over the tape keeping the edge of the bandages in place.

He is careful but that is different than gentle.

She is not reading him wrong but she is interpreting him that way when she is reminded exactly of how the silence fills up the spaces inside her head. And if Herc can read her at all, he knows Mako can stand neither of those things right now.

She wraps her fingers around his wrist, not halting him but reeling him in.

“Harder.”

She insists, and he doesn’t disappoint.

Their kisses aren’t so much the press of their lips after that as they are collisions on their own.

 

These chairs are made to work in, not to fuck in.

And what they have in mind to continue is most definitely not work, and Herc really would rather not throw his back out during the first chance he gets with Mako.

“Come on.”

He tugs her up with him, walking her that short distance to the couch. His belt is undone and his pants are slowly slipping from his hips but she is already stepping out of hers. He flips the sign at the door from open to closed and locks it from the inside just in case.

“Now I have you all to myself.”

She tells him as he comes to her, dragging her eyes down his body and the picture he makes for her so close.

“Goes both ways, pretty girl.”

And then he is pulling her back into his lap, curls a hand around her hip to have her closer. She sinks into his grip, feels how warm his hands are across her hot skin.

Mako cups his cheeks, lets the ginger scruff scratch against her palms and waits for him to tilt his head up to kiss her right.

 

She is probably going to bruise, and he is most definitely going to bruise with how hard Mako is digging her fingernails into the flesh of his shoulders.

Not that he minds when the fabric of her panties is so wet, soaked through with his precum and her slick, and now pushed to dangle from her ankle. He doesn’t fuck into her, not just yet. Herc bites the junction where her neck stretches into her shoulder, sinks his teeth into her hard enough to leave a mark, and lets her push her hips forward to grind his length against her folds. 

His shirt is gone, much likes hers, and his pants are shoved down just enough.

He lets her keep pace until she is close but he doesn’t give her more, not with how shallow he is working his fingers inside of her. He just brings his hand up to brush back the strands of black and blue that are sticking to her skin from sweat and matches her harsh breathing with his own.

Her moans aren’t loud but his grunts aren’t any quieter, and in the near silence of the parlour, they fill up this space with enough noises to keep the ghosts out.

 

The blunt push of his cock head inside of her has her gasping.

“Too much?”

Herc asks, stopping, sounding out of breath himself.

She shakes her head with the splay of her thighs soft against the rough canvas of his pants. He holds on to her even with the way she is ready to drop her entire weight down on him just so he can fill her to the brim.

Mako wants him all the way inside already and she is making that known. Her eyes drop close as she reaches down to wrap her fingers around his girth so she can sink down right. She doesn’t let him go gentle on her just as he doesn’t tell her _it’s alright_. He has had a decade with his grief. She has barely had a quiet day to herself to mourn. And if this is how he can help, he wants to be the one she comes to.

She is so tight around him, and he is so hard for her. 

But it is not all desperation that drives them.

“Start moving already, Herc.”

He lets out a rumble of laughter against her skin, and tilts his head to catch the tail end of her grin. His mouth curls in the exact fashion when he brushes a kiss across her collarbones, and does exactly that.

 

Mako Mori is a rock star Jaeger pilot that saved the world.

She is neither ready to move on from the drift nor those last few moments she spend deep beneath the Pacific Ocean. Her sensei’s last words still echo inside of her head. But Mako Mori is also lying stretched out across a worn couch in a tattoo parlour in some of the worst parts of the city, fucked out and basking in the afterglow of it all.

And she intends to want more.

“Tea?”

She sits up so Herc can have the room to join her. The porcelain cup he brings her is curling with steam. It is the littlest things: her ribs ache in that dull way that she doesn't mind at all, not when the buzzing of his needles keep many things at bay, and there are probably hickeys all over her if the state of Herc’s chest is any indication.

Even with the Kaiju gone, she hasn’t felt like she could breathe until now.

“Thank you.”

She lets out, soft against the rim of the cup. The heat filling her as she takes a sip, and it goes without saying that she probably means it in more ways than one.

Herc is not a man for sentiments but when she turns to him, he is already kissing her back like he needs that same affirmation just as much.

 


End file.
